Oil and Iraq

I know that oil/gas prices & profits have been rising for some years
now, but can anyone tell me if this surge in prices began about the
time of (or shortly after) the invasion/occupation of Iraq?

I know that there are certain theories floating about, advancing the
idea that the war in Iraq has been about oil all along; but these
theories seem to be based on the idea of America "seizing" Iraqi oil,
as if Iraq had been unwilling to sell us its oil and unwilling to
permit American oil companies to invest there. Whatever favorable
terms the invasion has granted U.S. and British oil companies, I don't
believe that they were excluded before, or that Iraq had been refusing
to sell oil to America; nor can Iraqi oil reserves be "seized" in the
sense that a true colonial conquering power could do.

Of course, I might be wrong here: there are historical precedents,
most notably the coup which replaced Mossadegh with the Shah after
Iran nationalized the oil industry (85 percent of the profits of which
had been going to the British). But was the situation in Iraq prior
to the invasion (and especially prior to the First Gulf War) really
parallel? Moreover, exactly what are the terms of profit-sharing
which U.S. and British companies have compelled or bribed the current
Iraqi government into accepting, and how do these vary from those
existing before the war? Perhaps more importantly, what restrictions
were placed on American and British oil companies, by their own
governments and by United Nations trade sanctions, in the period from
the First Gulf War to the recent invasion? Were *these* restrictions
onerous, and was the elimination of such restrictions dependent upon
regime change in Iraq -- a change which seemed less and less likely,
as time passed, to proceed from the less radical tools of economic
sanctions, political agitation, and covert action?

There is also talk of the vast, untapped potential in Iraq's western
(undeveloped/desert) portion, which could potentially give Iraq the
world's largest or second largest supply of usable reserves.
But even granting that these exist and can be developed, can it really
be the case that Saddam Hussein would have refused to develop these
assets, or refused to sell to America, or even refused to hire
American and British technical expertise in deciding how best to
search for and utilize such reserves, provided their governments would
have allowed them to invest in Iraq?

If found, and developed -- and I think it can be reasonably assumed
that Hussein would have jumped at the chance to increase Iraq's oil
assets -- what would have been the result of such a large increase in
usable reserves on the world market? Well, of course, in a certain
sense it might have depended on how shrewdly they were marketed. Just
because you have located huge new oil reserves doesn't mean you have
to dump everything on the market right away. Still, it seems to me
that the result of a significant increase in supply might have been to
undermine the global price structure of the oil business. What were
Saddam Hussein's plans with respect to the search for, development of,
and marketing of these putative new resources?

Instead, due (apparently) to fears/problems related to the invasion
and subsequent occupation/war in Iraq, oil prices (and especially
gasoline profits) have soared.

Obviously the situation is very good for oil companies, and obviously
the Bush family and their cronies are heavily invested in oil stocks.
But to assume that the invasion was the independent idea of the Bush
family, carried out for the purpose of lining their own personal
pockets, strikes me as dubious. Money makes the world go round, they
say: so why aren't there more cogent economic analyses of war motives
in Iraq, now that the original casus belli has been dismissed as
fraud?


Mark Adkins
msadkins04@xxxxxxxxx

.

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